Archbishop Felix Toppo of Ranchi October 16 joined priests, nuns and lay people to form a 5-kilometer human chain to denounce the arrest of an octogenarian Jesuit priest for alleged Maoist links.
Many of the more than 1,000 protestors, who lined up in the Jharkhand state capital of Ranchi lit candles, terming it a symbol of hope against the attempts to silence intellectuals and rights activists such as Father Stan Swamy.
The 83-year-old priest was arrested October 8 from his residence near Ranchi by the National Investigation Agency, the federal body to counter terrorism. The priest was taken to Mumbai the following morning.
He was presented before a court in the western Indian metropolitan city that remanded him to judicial custody until May 23.
The priest, who suffers from various illnesses such as Parkinson,.... 

Protest and journalism are criminal acts, Parliament is irrelevant, duties supersede rights,and profanity flows from the ordinary.
On October 8, Justice Sanjay Dhar of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court delivered a judgement that was remarkable in its ordinariness: it restated the law, common sense and the basic tenets of – what was once – the world’s largest democracy.
The case he was called to adjudicate upon was a two-year-old story in the Times of India. The headline read: “Stone pelters in J&K now target tourists, four women injured.” It was ordinary journalism, but it led to a criminal case against the reporter for “making or publishing a statement or rumour creating fear or alarm”.
The freedom of the press, said Justice Dhar, could not be imperiled on “grounds that are unknown to law” and “reporting of events, which a journalist has bona fide reason to believe to be true, can never be an offence”.... 

The arrest and imprisonment of an 83-year-old Jesuit priest in a two-year-old case have led to massive protests by people’s organizations, activists, intellectuals and concerned citizens from across India.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), a federal body to counter terror activities in the country, October 8 arrested Father Stanislaus Lourduswamy from his residence at the Bagaicha Campus near Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand state in eastern India.
According to the latest information, the agency October 9 took the priest to Mumbai, in western India, and presented him before a court that sent him to judicial custody until October 23.
The arrest of “Stan Swamy is a gross violation of human rights and democratic norms,” says an October 9 statement endorsed by more than 2,000 ...” 

Christian leaders have urged the government in India's Chhattisgarh state to act against those who attacked 16 Christian families and destroyed their houses for refusing to abandon their faith.
Even after a week, state police have not registered Christians' complaint against the tribal group that attacked them on Sept. 22 and 23, said Pastor Moses Logan.
"Police refused to register a first information report and are forcing the persecuted to compromise with the perpetrators of the crime," Pastor Logan told UCA News on Oct. 2.
A crowd of people opposed to indigenous people following Christianity vandalized 16 houses of tribal Christians in three villages — Kakrabeda, Singanpur and Tiliyabeda — in the state's Bastar region.
"They also assaulted women and children, so many ran into the forest to save their lives," the pastor said......” 

Seven tribal Christians were allegedly beaten, partially tonsured and forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” in a Jharkhand village on the unproven allegation that they had slaughtered a cow.
Although the incident happened on September 16 and a police complaint was lodged the next day, the matter became public only on September 25 when former zilla parishad member and social activist Neel Justin Beck told a local news portal about it.
Police confirmed the incident. Shams Tabrez, the superintendent of police in Simdega district where the attack took place, said four of the nine accused named in the FIR had been arrested and the rest would be picked up soon. The FIR also mentions 10 unnamed accused.
Jharkhand had witnessed the lynching of several tribal people and Muslims on unsubstantiated charges of cow slaughter or beef possession during the tenure of its previous BJP-led government (2014-19). ....